Montana Rifle Company Marshall Field Evaluations

[Formidilosus]

The first two prototype versions of the MRC/S2H Marshall rifle were received today. There will be three more rifles being sent to be used heavily by forum members.







Pulled straight out of the box and mounted the scope. This will be the first rifle in 20+ years that I haven’t torn down and reassembled correctly from the factory.



After mounting the scope and going to put the rifle up, I thought: man it would be nice if that good foam that was in the box was already cut for a scope. Walked over and-









Both rifles will be used at the (vary) winter Shoot2Hunt class starting this week.



@Imac45acp @Unknown Munitions
@Ryan Avery



Note: the only thing not production due to timeline are:

1). Bedding- these were full, tight bedded to determine if that would be better than slot bedding or bot bedding at all.

2). Bottom Metal Ceracoat instead of anodized.

3). Only the 5 round MDT magazines shipped with these two rifles due to supply. The 3 round flush fits will come ASAP.

4). The RokStoks do not have the molded in texture in the grip and forearm that all production ones will have.

 

[Formidilosus]

308 win without muzzle brake or mag weighs 6.2lbs.

 

[Formidilosus]

OP was updated to clarify that these were jot full production versions, there were a couple of experiments with bedding done to see the outcome. That didn’t work out well, so the bedding was altered to basically tang and front lug.


The 6.5cm was not shot much, however it was hovering between 1 MOA and 1.5 MOA for UM returned ammo-




a lot of 140gr ELD-M that was way too hot- in both of these groups, the bottom shot was a blown primer-









With hand loaded 130gr ELD-M from another rifle-




The 308-


Blackhills 155hr ELD-M-





Hornady 168gr-



Then the 308 was shot for approx 300 rounds out to 755 yards. It was shot very well by the user.

The 6:5cm has had zero feed or function issues whatsoever. The 308 had a firing on that wasn’t releasing the second day it was used. That day was -15° F. The bolt was stripped (and extremely easy field stripping) and found that the grease that was applied to the firing pin spring was frozen solid, and was functionally dust. He blew the grease turned dust off, wiped it in how pants, and reinserted it- worked perfectly after that for the next 300+ rounds.
Both rifles were purposely left completely exposed- bolt back action port up while it was snowing allow snow to accumulate in the action and trigger. They ran without fuss or hiccup.

 

[Formidilosus]

I will be flying to MRC to spend a few days with Ian to and go over exactly how the rifles should be set up, shoot several, and to experiment a bit. Maybe shoot the first 6 CM barrels. Once we get to production rifles, several will go out to Roksliders to use and evaluate.

 

[Formidilosus]

Spent a few days at MRC shooting rifles, and experimenting.







Swapping barrels. Pull barrel off-


Spin new on and tighten-



Does not close on a No-Go gage-



Go-Gauge closes perfectly-






We swapped quite a few barrels pulled randomly from the racks. In every case they headspaced, functioned and worked correctly.

Even did it at the range-








The 6.5 CM barrels, and latest 308win barrels were relatively picky in what loads they would shoot. The 308’s did not like the lot# they had of Hornday 168gr ELD-M or 178gr ELD-X’s. The Hornady Black 168gr AMAX technically was meeting the standard, but they were quite clear that it wasn’t going to be acceptable to them. Federal Gold Medal Match 168gr shot well- 1.3 MOA for 20 rounds composite.

In any case Ian and Matt were very clear that the performance was not acceptable whether they technically met the 10 round 1.5 MOA spec or not. They want the rifles to shoot most decent ammo at sub 1.5 MOA for ten rounds- not just cherry picked brands/types; and good ammo at much closer to 1 MOA for 10 rounds.

The rifles all fed, functioned, fired to standard with no issues whatsoever from the rifles- one MDT 5 round mag was rough feeding and would have been pulled (hence the 101 function rounds).


Overall it was a good trip. Grace Outdoors in total, and MRC in particular seem to legitimately care that their products work correctly and do not need to be convinced that they should work without question. Ian is going to experiment with throats, chambers, and barrels and when they have it worked out, we will have a revisit.